OVER 2 YOU, 048 (20/09/01)

SPOOF NEWSPAPER

I love "spoofs" and want to produce newspaper items that I can E-mail to my pals.  The finished result needs to look as if part of a page has been scanned from a National, and this will contain the "spoof" item looking for all the world as if it has actually appeared in print. How can I do this? 

Geoff Thomas, via email

WordPerfect has some newspaper templates in, various styles, which are very realistic

David Cockerill,

This shouldn't be too difficult to manage using your normal word processing, scanning and paint box programs. Prepare your 'spoof' story and headline on a word processor, trying as far as possible to replicate the style (font, character size, column width and so on) as possible to the newspaper; it might be a good idea to try and match the size – the number of lines, headline etc. – of your spoof to an actual story on a newspaper page. Scan the newspaper page and save it as image A then print out your spoof story and save that as image B. Now you can combine the two. Programs like Paintbox Pro will let you 'float' a second image over the top of another. The size of the insert will probably need some fine-tuning but with a little trial and error it should be possible to achieve a convincing match, after which it can be saved as a JPEG file and emailed to your 'victim'.

Jerry Heller, Dulwich, SE London

HISTORICAL WEATHER

I have scoured the web without success for a source of historical weather data for individual towns and cities. Just some basic averages like temperature, sunshine hours and rainfall as you get in any holiday brochure. I thought this would be standard information in house buying for instance to
compare Macclesfield with Maidstone for instance. Can anyone
point me the right direction.
John Yates, via email

John Yates might like to try www.weather.co.uk. Once there, input the name of the town or first part of the postcode of the area, which interests him.  From there he can click the link for climate statistics. I don't know how far back Mr Yates needs to go but this site is a good starting point!

Geoff Truss, Rainham, Kent

Have a look at the historical weather data kept at the National Meteorological Archive at the Met Office. They can be contacted by E-mail at: metarc@meto.gov.uk the website www.metoffice.com also has links to the archive. 

Don Drew,

LEARNING TO DRAW

Both my wife and her friend would like learn to draw and paint and are looking for a website or CD-ROM which would help them.

Mike Ward, via email

Anyone who wants to paint or draw should visit www.saa.co.uk the place for
artists of all abilities from complete beginners to professionals. Happy painting!
John Hope-Hawkins,

There's an excellent learning to draw tutorial, intended for teachers, at the following web site: http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/K9-14/introduction.htm

Jenny Silver, Doncaster

I recommend www.wetcanvas.com for tutorials and general help with all kinds of
art. They also publish at least one CD on watercolour painting. Particularly good are the forums where you can get help on particular problems.
Doug Elliot,

The Channel 4 web site has a small list of links and resources for those wishing to learn to paint, it can be found at: http://www.channel4.com/plus/wcc/fom_ltp.html

John Spicer,

Have a look at the Figure Drawing Lab at: http://www2.evansville.edu/drawinglab/. This provides a brief but comprehensive and fairly well written introduction to the basics of painting and drawing life figures, however, I contend that you can't learn to draw from a PC screen, your correspondent should enrol in a class at their local college or centre for adult education. Details are usually available from local libraries.

M. Jasper, via email

BBC DISCS

I have a number of documents locked up on 5.25 inch disks created on a BBC computer. I should like to transfer them as text to a PC, and have a PC with disk drive to suit. Is there a PC program, which will read these disks?
Archie Dickson via email

One site you may like to have a look at is: http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/bbc/software.php3. Here you will find a number of utilities for reading BBC format disks on a PC, and some other transfer utilities. However you need to be aware of what format the original disk is (in particular 40 or 80 track, single or double density, DFS or ADFS), and what drive you are using on the PC (360K/720K/1.2M). Only certain combinations will work, but this is explained in the accompanying README. If all else fails, and you still have the Beeb available, Kermit and a serial cable does the job!
Stuart Menefy

I have a program BEEBDOS which will read BBC format 5.25-inch floppies on a PC, which should do what Archie Dickson wants. Reading the files is one thing, getting programs to run is another. I also have BBC BASIC, which will run in DOS, which he may find useful.  If he contacts me I can forward him these.
Dave Sergeant,

I have been connected with computers in an engineering capacity since 1957... One aspect of all this is my interest in old computers operating systems and associated discs. I have the hardware and software to do the above and some other 600 computers as well. If Mr Dickson would like to email me, we can arrange something. I make no charge for this, I do it to keep the old grey cells active
Alan Bosworth,

It's easy when you know what you're looking for... I typed "bbc emulator" into yahoo.com and came up with this link:

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Ring/6690/

Darren Thompson,

FANTASY FOOTBALL

I run a Fantasy Football league at work using the rules and points from the Daily Telegraph, I have all the teams on an Excel spreadsheet. As you can imagine there are several entries with the same players. How can I make it that when I enter the scores on a Wednesday I only need to type the first score for a duplicated player and the rest of the duplicates will automatically be awarded the same points.  In essence what is the formula to copy a cell value to other random cells?  Bear in mind that this formula cannot be fixed as the player involved may be substituted during the season.

Colin Temple, via email

The way I have run our office competition for several years works quite well. It takes a while to set it up at the outset, but the weekly updates are simple to perform. 

Very simply I have on 1 sheet a list of all the players selected by the various entrants and then details of each entrant on an individual sheet.  On the 'master players' sheets the score is entered into a cell that has been 'named', by using the name box (just above cell A1).  Enter the players name in there, e.g. saha and press enter.  On each entrants sheet next to the players details put in the formula (in this example) "=saha" without the inverted comma's.

Each week simply update the 'master players' details and all the scores entered in will feed through.  You can then carry out a similar process to create a league table, which will simply require sorting into order after each update.

For instances where players are transferred out on the individual team sheet replace the formula with the players score at the time of the transfer.  For players transferred in enter the formula as "=saha-x" where x is the score at the time the player is transferred in.  Then only points accumulated after the transfer will count.

Dave Wilson,

JUST A MINUTE

I am the General Secretary of a fairly large sporting organisation. One aspect of my job is the taking of minutes at our quarterly Regional Meetings. If I take an active part in the discussions I find that I sometimes miss making notes of important points of view and of decisions taken. If, on the other hand, I concentrate on taking notes I am unable to take any constructive part in the proceedings.

Does any one know of any software, which will enable me to learn either shorthand or some form of speedwriting? I have tried to get a volunteer (who knows shorthand) to act as "minute secretary" but cannot persuade anybody to do so.
Brian H Purnell, via email

I am a Project management consultant that specialises is sorting out problem projects. The most common problem I have come across is that no one knows how to run meetings and take minutes, even in quite large firms with so-called experienced people. To help overcome the problem I wrote a document, which gives a breakdown on how to run meetings and take minutes. You will find it on my web site which is http://www.rstuk.co.uk and if you follow 'Articles' you will find an html document called 'Meetings! Bloody meetings'.
Roger Todd,

I have considerable experience, over 50 years, of sitting on committees and frequently being the minute-taker. Admittedly my shorthand expertise did come in useful, but it can be done by using key words and, most importantly, doing the minutes as soon as possible whilst the gist of the meeting is fresh in ones mind.

My experience has been that one needs to know the subject well, if you don't, you flounder and take copious unnecessary notes which only confuse. The secret is in compiling a detailed agenda, which gives members as much information as possible. Then information items can be 'received' without discussion, and the meeting should concentrate on the agenda items, which really do need discussion. The agenda will thus provide the bones of the meeting and the minute-taker can flesh it out with the discussion. It is also important to have a Chairman who will check the minutes with you and summarise the members' views so that there is no argy bargy afterwards about what was decided. I was never tempted to use a tape recorder  -  I couldn't have listened to everything all over again!

Sheila Kenyon, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire.

CAN YOU HELP?

My 13 year old daughter wants to design her own clothes and we would like to know if a program is available where 'models' of different sizes can be used on screen with different types of clothes so that she can design or paste her own designs.

Peter McMahon, via email

I have about 500 un-made plastic model airplane kits, all makes and sizes, which my late husband collected. I also have aircraft magazines and decals. Does any one know of a web site I might find out their worth as well as try to sell them?

Helen Prentice, via email

I have recently joined a Barbers Shop harmony group.  It would make life easier if I learnt how to read music. Does anyone know of any PC software I could use?

Jack Lloyd, via email

As part of my College Computing Course I am investigating the ability of computers and the Internet to provide information to Scottish Country Dancers, such as dance instructions, a note of the appropriate music and/or a graphic/visual aid model of how any particular dance is executed. I am aware of local Scottish Country Dance Branch Sites and the downloadable programs "Dance Data" and "MiniCrib", but I wondered if readers knew of any other sites or programs.
Alasdair Graham, Dumbarton